Bathroom Redo Part One!

Well, since the day we bought our house, we have loathed the master bathroom.  In fact, if I have ever talked to you about it, you have heard me say that it is "horrible.." and it "smells like poo poo".  It is all those things.  The previous owners added this bathroom in the early 1990's.  While it's awful, it IS there and it IS big.  We knew the moment we walked thru the house that this puppy was getting torn up.  Here are some reminders of the black and brass bathroom beauty.

Beautiful hexagonal sink..

No one needs this in their bathroom..

Cat hole. That is the previous owners' hamper and bedroom wall color. I promise.

The sign on the shower door says "CONDEMNED". It's been there for a couple months..

You can really see the nastiness here.  And where we tried to caulk the ginormous leak.

Every time I came in this bathroom, I could smell the faint smell of rotten.  The laminate counter top of the vanity had been wet for probably 10 years due to a bad caulking job, and it would leak brown water all the time from under the sink.  The shower was used out of necessity when we first moved in, but once the other bathroom upstairs got all fixed up, it was retired.  I have never stepped foot in the bathtub.  The once-brass jets had permanently turned green.  Are you grossed out yet??? :)  Well there was only one thing left to do-- RIP IT OUT!!

I felt like the prep here was super important.  We weirdly but luckily have two ways into our bedroom- you can go in thru the closet in the hall- which is a huge bonus right now.  We started with taping off a new hallway to keep all the nastiness from getting into our bedroom. There isn't a window in this bathroom, but there is a skylight, which we were very thankful for.

It was all taped off tightly

Sealed off all the vents in the room.

We got the vanity and sink out first, and to our surprise, there was plumbing already for a second sink-- we will be utilizing that later!

Then we turned our attention to the shower.  It was quickly apparent that the tiles would not come right off (cause that would be too easy).  After a couple swings of the hammer, we discovered that the tile was put on this 1.5" concrete and mesh board stuff.  This was going to be interesting....

The only thing that was ironically helpful was all the rot.  When I got to the bottom, along the shower basin, the wall was so wet, the tiles just busted thru to the other side when I hit them.  And oh, that smell! It was so moldy, it was so nice to get all that junk out of our house.

We got the tub all unhooked, but it weighed approx 4000 pounds, so we had to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK to get some big guys to come haul it away.  WELL worth the little extra cash.  Here is the shower and tub today!

 

Bye bye nastiness!!

This took us a full day of solid work. The floor tiles (sticky vinyl tiles) will be coming up next, followed by the shower basin.  We are so excited with the progress we can hardly stand it.  It might sit like this for a little while, but it sure does seem a lot better already! Stay tuned for more updates!!

Bathroom Redo Preparation!

So we're about to  rip out our master bathroom-- WOOHOO!-- but so many things needed to be done before we could tackle this gigantic project.  We have another bathroom upstairs that was in pretty good shape, but it needed to be in better shape since it will be our main bathroom for a while.  Brent redid all the caulking around the tub and some grout repair, we got an exhaust fan added, and we had to get the shower plumbing replaced.  The valves were original to the house, and they were shot.  Luckily we have a linen closet right behind all the plumbing so we could simply change out old for new. 

It didn't just drip, it had a steady stream of water all the time.

Serious corrosion.

New valves!

We had a limited selection for the new fixtures since we wanted to keep things simple and stick with a three piece set, but I really like the new ones and they are growing on me!

Shiny and new!

Now for the next step.. DEMOLITION.  We had planned to start ripping things out on Easter weekend since it was a long one.  I looked into dumpster rental, but those things cost a fortune, so I found these things called Bagsters that you buy at Home Depot and waste management comes and picks up. Here is our cart of supplies, and we used every last thing in there.

Contents: work gloves, masks, crow bar, another cheap hammer, 5 gallon buckets, drain removal tool, sawzall blades, shower pipe cap, plastic sheeting, and Basters (2 just in case).  Things we already had: wrench, drill, screw driver, sawzall, respirator, drywall saw.

Here Goes Nothin'!!